What happened to the Network Miniseries?

[Turtleboy]

Is it just me, or has the network miniseries been dead for a long time now. The Networks used to do great miniseries like Roots, Lonesome Dove and the original V.

HBO can still do great miniseries like John Adams, From the Earth to the Moon, and Band of Brothers.

But the Networks seem to have given up on the miniseries, or turn anything that could have been a great miniseries into a regular series that starts off great, and then runs out of steam, or ideas (see e.g., Heroes).

[jschuur]

Seems like 13 episode 'limited runs' are the new network mini series.

[newsposter]

I'm glad that minis like Earthquake 10.1 and tornado 8 are gone though. Those were embarrassing to watch and belong on scifi, not the big 4 :) And i dreaded every sweeps month because you knew one movie like that would be on per weekend.

[lew]

With a few exceptions (Lost, Heroes) networks don't like shows that continue. People who don't start watching from the first episode are a tough sell. Alias had to change and make the episodes more or less self contained. That's why they showed the cliff hanger in the beginning of the episode and then "flashed back" to show how they got to that point.

Cable channels can plaster the episodes all over their schedule.

[Steveknj]

I think they are just too expensive to produce for the potentially limited payoffs they produce. Years ago, when there was less competition, these things were BIG events, but nowadays, people won't invest the time in one of these if it doesn't interest them right off.

[Alfer]

I think they are just too expensive to produce for the potentially limited payoffs they produce. Years ago, when there was less competition, these things were BIG events, but nowadays, people won't invest the time in one of these if it doesn't interest them right off.

^

This

[Turtleboy]

But the HBO miniseries -- Band of Brothers, From the Earth to the Moon, John Adams, are awesome. And they don't even sell commercial time.

[MikeMar]

But the HBO miniseries -- Band of Brothers, From the Earth to the Moon, John Adams, are awesome. And they don't even sell commercial time.

I bet they get a LOT of their money for those from DVD sales

[lew]

But the HBO miniseries -- Band of Brothers, From the Earth to the Moon, John Adams, are awesome. And they don't even sell commercial time.

You answered your own question, the miniseries works for HBO because they don't have to sell commercial time. The budget for a good mini-series is high but there is no way to guarantee ratings. No pilot to test. The whole mini-series is filmed before it airs. Ratings tank for the first epsiode there isn't anything the network can do, other then burn the unaired episodes in bad time slots, on the web or on a cable station (USA network).

[Turtleboy]

I bet they get a LOT of their money for those from DVD sales

Which the networks can do also, and they do do on their regular series.

[DevdogAZ]

Which the networks can do also, and they do do on their regular series.
It's simply a matter of ratings. The viewing public has told the networks in no uncertain terms that they're not interested in multi-night mini-series anymore. There might be 2-3 million people that are interested, and those kind of numbers are successful for HBO. But that would be a dismal failure on one of the networks.

[newsposter]

oops i misspoke! I guess it's sweeps month :)

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/moviewatch.aspx?id=diamonds&view=listings

[Church AV Guy]

I have noticed that a program that spans two nights is now called a mini-series. I thought it had to be more than two "episodes" to be a "series". I guess I was wrong. Yeah, that ship has sailed I guess.

[MickeS]

The last "mini series" I remember watching was some Stephen King adaption a few years back. I too was wondering why networks don't make them anymore, but usually the answer to any such question is "they don't make money on it".

[DevdogAZ]

oops i misspoke! I guess it's sweeps month :)

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/moviewatch.aspx?id=diamonds&view=listings
Sweeps ended last night. It's now officially summer as far as the TV networks are concerned.
The last "mini series" I remember watching was some Stephen King adaption a few years back. I too was wondering why networks don't make them anymore, but usually the answer to any such question is "they don't make money on it".
I think that was "Red Rose" and I agree that I haven't seen any true mini-series on the Big Four since then. That's been several years ago.

[newsposter]

i still have the last Kingdom hospital (or whatever it was called) on a RAM disk somewhere, i guess i should watch it someday

[lew]

Networks aren't likely to take the risk inherent in giving an hour(or more) of their prime time schedule to one program for an entire week (other then Jay Leno).

We still see an occassional two epsidoe "mini-series" plus an occassional 13 week limited run series, Harpers Island is one such example. Imagine if CBS had aired that as a mini-series, an hour a night for 2 weeks. A disaster.

[JYoung]

Which the networks can do also, and they do do on their regular series.

No they can't.
The networks don't see a dime of DVD sales.

[realityboy]

If 2 night events count, ABC has Diamonds starting this Sunday. Other than that, I don't really see very many popping up in the foreseeable future unless we count I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here as a mini-series.

[latrobe7]

No they can't.
The networks don't see a dime of DVD sales.
:confused: Is that like how movies "never" make a profit?

I mean, maybe the "network" as a business-unit doesn't count the money from DVD sales in their accounting, but the parent company is getting paid - for example, ABC may not make money off of LOST DVDs, but Disney does; no?

[DevdogAZ]

:confused: Is that like how movies "never" make a profit?

I mean, maybe the "network" as a business-unit doesn't count the money from DVD sales in their accounting, but the parent company is getting paid - for example, ABC may not make money off of LOST DVDs, but Disney does; no?
No, what he means is that many TV shows are owned and produced by one studio, and then the broadcast rights are licensed to another network. For example, 20th Century Fox might produce a show, but it might air on CBS. When it comes time to sell the DVDs, 20th Century Fox will get the proceeds, and CBS won't see a dime.

[aindik]

:confused: Is that like how movies "never" make a profit?

I mean, maybe the "network" as a business-unit doesn't count the money from DVD sales in their accounting, but the parent company is getting paid - for example, ABC may not make money off of LOST DVDs, but Disney does; no?

The production company sees the money. Sometimes that's a company owned by the same parent company as the network, sometimes it's not.

[latrobe7]

No, what he means is that many TV shows are owned and produced by one studio, and then the broadcast rights are licensed to another network. For example, 20th Century Fox might produce a show, but it might air on CBS. When it comes time to sell the DVDs, 20th Century Fox will get the proceeds, and CBS won't see a dime.

The production company sees the money. Sometimes that's a company owned by the same parent company as the network, sometimes it's not.

Right - my point was that a network (or the parent company) could decide to produce a mini-series planning to make money on the DVD release, as well as on the advertising.

Back to my LOST example; I've always thought that part of the reason ABC agreed to a firm end date is because they knew doing so would result in a better DVD product (for Buena Vista).

[aindik]

I think they agreed on a firm end date because Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse said that they'd quit the show if they didn't get a commitment to an end date.

[latrobe7]

I think they agreed on a firm end date because Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse said that they'd quit the show if they didn't get a commitment to an end date.
Eh, maybe so. Still, my main point was that networks are able to profit from DVD sales of their shows in certain circumstances; which they could ensure were in place should they want to produce a miniseries.

[DevdogAZ]

Right - my point was that a network (or the parent company) could decide to produce a mini-series planning to make money on the DVD release, as well as on the advertising.
There's no reason why what you propose couldn't work. However, that's not generally the way the TV industry works. The networks don't really proactively develop the content. They simply listen to pitches from production companies and then decide whether they're willing to fund those projects being pitched. If it's something being pitched by their sister production studio, they might give it a little more leeway than something from another studio.

But I think it would be rare for a network executive to actively seek to develop a show (whether a mini-series, special or a regular series) on the premise that they'd be able to profit from the DVD sales. Network execs are all about making money from the sale of advertising revenue. If they didn't think they could make a sufficient profit from ad sales and would have to wait for DVD sales to make it worthwhile, they just wouldn't bother in the first place.

[Jeeters]

The networks have enough problems getting people to return or even start to tune in on a weekly basis to watch heavily serialized dramas, let alone serialized shows that require *daily* viewing.

Besides cable networks not needing commercials to pay for the miniseries such as Band of Brothers, etc., they also have the advantage that the episodes are repeated several times. So viewers have more flexibility on when they watch subsequent episodes. Unlike network miniseries which are usually a single airing of each episode so you better make sure you don't miss any as there aren't any later repeats.

[mattack]

If 2 night events count,

Yeah, that was going to be my response -- I think a 3 hour, two-part) movie (2 2-hour movies with commercials) is what we see as 'miniseries' nowadays.

I think there were at least two of them this year. One I still haven't watched yet that's being rerun this weekend.. (with the daughter of the guy who was the father on "That's Life".. I realize she's way more famous, but without going to imdb, that's the closest I can narrow her down at the moment -- I know she won an Oscar too.) and I think one or two other ones.

Heck, was the "long" version of Ulysses ever released? (Deja-vu -- I probably have mentioned this before). They showed a chopped up version with VERY bad CGI on NBC a few years ago.. and it was supposed to be a subset of the 'real' long version.

[bicker]

The networks have enough problems getting people to return or even start to tune in on a weekly basis to watch heavily serialized dramas, let alone serialized shows that require *daily* viewing.This is absolutely the reason. People have other things in their lives other than television entertainment, believe it or not.

[Steveknj]

I think the mini-series has morphed into the short season series that "may" become a regular series. Things like Kings or Harper's Island. They will float out a short run...6-9 weeks perhaps on a weekly basis, and if the show is a success, then they'll pick up more. I think Lost or Heroes might have started out that way....once they were successful, they became full weekly series. You could also think of 24 as kind a mini-series.

On the point of Cable being able to repeat episodes of a mini-series, networks have done that, either on Sat night, or repurposed on one of their cable outlets (FX, USA, ABC Family etc.).

[newsposter]

The networks have enough problems getting people to return or even start to tune in on a weekly basis to watch heavily serialized dramas, let alone serialized shows that require *daily* viewing.
.

i wonder how soap operas survive 20-50 years then?:D

[Steveknj]

i wonder how soap operas survive 20-50 years then?:D

It's a different audience, plus soaps are more like seiral shows than mini-series, as there are long story lines but they change over time, there's no definitive ending of the story. But I don't think there are as many Soaps as there used to be....and have there been any new ones in the past 10 years? I think that this will probably die out too, or move to something like the Soap network.

[realityboy]

Well Guiding Light just died this year...also the CW was the only network to agree to host the Daytime Emmys so soaps aren't doing so hot either. On the other hand, this year saw the 2nd soap go to HD.

[jeff125va]

Funny, I was going to post this question a week or so ago, just never got around to it. I remember watching The Winds of War - it was like 2-3 hours a night for like 8 nights over two weeks. And we had to watch live. Now a "miniseries" is 4 hours over 2 nights. I agree with a couple posters who said that this genre has been replaced with 13-episode runs, such as "Kings" and the ones on HBO. There are just too many channels to compete with for viewers to commit that kind of time to. IIRC, shows like Band of Brothers and FTETTM were on weekly, correct?